Should I upgrade?

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WildMonkey

Gawd
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Nov 1, 2007
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I currently have a 290 and only game at 1920x1200, but I've been feeling the upgrade itch. I know new generation of cards are in the near future, but I don't know when they are going to be released. And the only real upgrade I would consider is a 980 Ti or a Fury X, the xfire route doesn't really seem appealing to me, too many bugs, high power consumption, etc...
 
WAIT for the love of God wait. New GPUs are making their entrance in the next few months. They may only be as powerful as what we have now, as low to mid teir may release first but they will be far more efficient.
 
I'd wait in your situation. A 290 is still plenty of power at 1920x1200 so I don't see any reason to need to upgrade now.
 
I would wait if I were you. I've had for quite awhile now and it is still doing fairly well at 1440p. You will be kicking yourself in my opinion jumping now and not waiting for the second quarter launch.

Look at upgrading other components if you haven't recently. Bigger SSD or more/faster ram.
 
Wait it out. I am in the same boat, but I will stick with my 290 for the next 6 months. Even if you don't get the latest tech, upon release you should see the 980Ti come down in price.
 
I'm on the same boat. I would wait. But if I see a 980ti on sale for $500 + a game, I will grab it.
 
Would refrain from investing into current technology for the simple reason that AMD with Polaris at least will feature some impressive performance per Watt ratio. Your 290 or 290X should suffice until well into the next year really ;)

What is unclear about the launch of Polaris is the time frame between July and September that is from the internet rumour mill.
 
If you want to game now buy now. If you want to game in 6-9 months, wait. First new GPU's will be mobile and real replacements for 980Ti are far off. I would never wait for anything that is not confirmed to be released in 6-8 weeks.
 
i have a gtx 770 and in the same boat. i wanna wait but its tempting to grab a 970 for cheap.
 
Now is not the time. 3+ months ago (when I went balls-to the wall) 980Ti / SLI was still a viable option because new stuff was still 6+ months out, and I fit the two categories below:
1. Extremely impatient.
2. Extremely demanding.

I was also at the time planning to go to a 4K display, but my search out in sanely priced 4K tv / monitor land only ended in tears (7 Best Buy returns later), so I ended up at 3440x1440 with a proper monitor. Had I known then that I'd be running 21:9 ultrawide and not "full" 4K, I probably would've just got one card and suffered for a few months. As it stands I'm very happy with my current setup, but fully expect it to get destroyed 4-6 months from now when the enthusiast (non-Titan) Pascal based cards come out.
 
I think those expecting a huge jump in performance are going to be disappointed. Nvidia and AMD are both business companies first. No they won't hand you impressive products at the cost of a 980Ti. It still is a rather new card. Perhaps in late 2017, but not the first Pascal/Polaris versions. They will most likely show off the new tech and at best be about 30-40% faster. Perhaps Titan V. 1080 for example won't be that much faster than 980Ti. They are only talking about impressive performance per watt ratio, they never said anything about impressive performance. Next we're seeing 150W 1080 that is 10% faster than 980Ti. "But hey, it draws 50% less power!". 1080Ti won't be coming out anytime soon.
 
When new GPUs come out this year, we'll finally be off the 28nm process. I definitely recommend waiting to see what the upcoming 14nm/16nm GPUs with HBM2 are like.
 
Had some bonus cash at year's end and decided to jump from 780Ti SLI to 980Ti SLI. No regrets here! It's really beginning to sound like Pascal won't arrive till mid summer at the earliest, and I'll be awaiting the "Ti" or equivalent version release anyway, which is probably more an end of the year type event. The 980Ti's in SLI are very capable, especially since I have them both waterblocked and nicely overclocked. More than enough to handle 1600p gaming and will easily hold up for 4K gaming should I decide to grab a better monitor later this year. Finally, they will work just fine with the Rift (even if SLI isn't an option) when it arrives in April. I'm planning to just let Pascal arrive and sort itself out this year - not going to entertain another round of GPU upgrades until next year at the earliest.
 
Are you unhappy with current gaming on your machine ? If yes upgrade. Is your whole system balanced ? I'm rocking a r9 290 with a high clocked i7, and am in gaming heaven. If I was unhappy I'd upgrade
 
I recently Sold my R9 290 for a Asus Strix Gtx970 on sale at amazon. i needed better linux support and something quieter. Both cards are more than enough performance for right now.
 
As a 390 owner, I say wait.

Are there actually any games that are giving you performance problems?
 
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